


The Romance Negotiation

by sampenning



Category: The Big Bang Theory (TV)
Genre: Aro!Penny, Aromantic Character, Aromantic Penny, F/M, POV Penny
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-14
Updated: 2016-10-14
Packaged: 2018-08-22 08:13:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 418
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8279032
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sampenning/pseuds/sampenning
Summary: Penny loves Leonard, but she also kinda doesn’t.





	

**Author's Note:**

> I had problems with the particular line from 10.03 The Dependence Transcendence that I quote.
> 
> I decided to write a fic around it with my personal headcanon of Aro!Penny.

_“Apparently he tricked some hot girl into marrying him.”_

_“That's me, I'm her… You know, he didn't trick me. He just wore me down.”_

//

Penny loves Leonard, but she also kinda doesn’t.

She’s never really loved a boyfriend before. Well, actually, she has had feelings for them, but never how her friends described it- a fluttering in their stomach, a warmness in their chest, a mess of thoughts when you see them. She’s cared for people, but she’s never felt those sensations that people talk about when describing capital-L kind of Love.

Sometimes she thinks she’s broken, like a coffee maker without a filter, making something nasty and gritty that no one wants.

She does like sex, which Sheldon never fails to remind everyone of. It kinda worked out for a while. Guys falling left and right for her, ready to have crazy sex for a weekend. Then they say something about getting serious and she dumps them, or they decide to leave when she doesn’t reciprocate their capital-L Love. It got tiring fast after the nth guy she had to explain her whole thing to.

When the few she did tell realised what she meant, they were gone faster than her paychecks.

Enter Leonard.

Geeky, kind almost to a fault, vanilla but willing to learn to be wild, so smart he was kind of stupid. He was patient and careful and so damn thoughtful of her that dating him became a natural thought. But he was so serious about _it_ and his capital-L Love and it just freaked her out.

But even when she broke up with him, he still stayed. He gave her space. He gave her time. He was there, even if he didn’t understand why Penny broke up with him when they were going so well.

She didn’t want to tell him why she freaked out. She didn’t want to tell him that she couldn’t capital-L Love him. Love him like she knew he deserved.

But she did. She tried. She said that she wasn’t a romantic, she couldn’t return his love quite right.

He said it was okay. He said that he’d take what she was willing to give.

Leonard wore her down, alright. Her wore her down to feel comfortable with a relationship on her terms, not someone else’s, not the ones in movies and TV and everywhere else. A kind of relationship where her lowercase-L love fit with someone else’s capital-L Love.

Marrying Leonard was the easiest thing she'd ever done.


End file.
